How long does it take to beat Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles

Final Fantasy Tactics is a lengthy tactical RPG, and the remake, The Ivalice Chronicles is no exception. As this is a game that strives to be a perfect recreation of the original, albeit with a few quality-of-life changes to modernize the gameplay flow, it’s still going to take quite a long time to overcome. A standard playthrough shouldn’t be as long as say, completing Final Fantasy XVI, but more in-line with modern games like Avowed.

Of course, how long you spend in the game also depends on things like difficulty setting, and how much of the game you’re actually completing. If you’re taking the time to unlock all the secret characters, and tracking down all the hidden items, it could take longer than simply completing the game.

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Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles playtime: How long is one playthrough?

You can probably expect your average Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles playthrough to last anywhere from 35-45 hours. This accounts for not just playing through the main storyline, but taking the time to level grind and unlock more jobs, and pick up all of the optional, secret characters.

It took me around 30 hours to get to Chapter 4 and a bit more to unlock everyone on Tactician difficulty (Image via Square Enix)

You could likely get through the game much faster, if you’re fast forwarding through cutscenes, and not bothering to take the time to level grind your party up. Then you could probably shave it down to somewhere between 25-30 hours, but that would likely ultimately be more challenging, unless you played on Squire difficulty.

However, if you’re pushing for 100% completion and a Platinum Trophy, you’re easily looking at potentially 70-80 hours. Ultimately, it also depends on what you define as 100% completion. If you’re going to unlock all the jobs, all the skills, all the extra characters, and track down all the hidden, extra items, it’s going to take a long time.

Having all the skills on one character alone is going to take a monstrous amount of grinding, when you consider how many expensive, spell-casting abilities exist in Final Fantasy Tactics. Doing a bit of grinding in the early game can make the majority of the story go by much faster.

40 or so hours isn't bad for a full playthrough, but depending on how thorough you want to be, it could go much longer (Image via Square Enix)

For example, I spent about 7-10 hours grinding at the beginning of Final Fantasy Tactics, to make sure I had the party I wanted to run the whole game with. The only other grinding I did was for jobs/skills that I had plans for later. This allowed me to push through the story swiftly, while admittedly being pretty overleveled for most of it.

It all really comes down to your playstyle, and what you consider to be a completed version of the game. Simply getting all the extra characters and wrapping the story shouldn’t take too much longer than 40 hours of gameplay.

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Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles launches on September 30, 2025, and is truly a masterpiece. You can learn more about the revived genre-defining tactical RPG in our in-depth review.